VANCOUVER — Travel agents in British Columbia are celebrating Beijing’s decision to resume group tourism to Canada, hoping for the return of big-spending Chinese visitors who were a dominant presence for the local travel industry before the pandemic.
Travel agent Glynnis Chan, president at Vancouver-based Happy Times Travel and Tour Ltd., has been leading group tours for Chinese tourists in the city for more than forty years.
She says she expects a big boost for the local economy after Monday’s decision by China to resume group tours that were halted in 2020 amid the pandemic.
Chan says the tourists she hosted would typically spend six weeks travelling Canada, estimating they’d spend more than $1,300 a day, with Stanley Park in Vancouver, the Rocky Mountains, and Parliament Hill in Ottawa on their sightseeing list.
Fellow travel agent Mabel Wu, who owns Next Vacation Ltd in Richmond, B.C., says that in the “glory times” of Chinese tourism before the pandemic, groups would visit restaurants to order the most expensive seafood available, such as king crabs to live lobsters.
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand says in a statement that the resumption of Chinese group tourism to Canada is “an important step in the recalibrated bilateral relationship.”
The move came days after Prime Minister Mark Carney met Chinese President Xi Jinping, with Anand calling it a “turning point” in the relations between the two countries.
Destination BC says Chinese travel to Canada in the year to August is down 45 per cent compared with 2019, although numbers are already tracking upwards, by 24 per cent since last year.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 4, 2025.
Nono Shen, The Canadian Press
